


So Take Me To Paradise

by notheretonowhere



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:00:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24322420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notheretonowhere/pseuds/notheretonowhere
Summary: Because he loves you. Because it’s obvious to anyone with eyes.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 4





	So Take Me To Paradise

When he got drunk, like really drunk, when the darkness crept into the corners of his vision, and the weight in his heart threatened to drag him through the floor, he would always end up here. On the corner from this comfortable suburban house, low-roofed and wide-porched. He’d stand there under the streetlight and watch their lives through the dining room window. They couldn’t see him there, stinking of bourbon and cigarette smoke. The warm glow from their lights must have made the outside world seem impenetrably dark. And they had a dinner to attend to. Wrapped up in family life, passing potatoes and piled up peas, talking through their days. All that ‘how was school’ and ‘did you get enough creamed corn at the grocery store’. Or whatever clapped-out cliched crap such a perfect family would talk about. 

It hurt. God, it hurt. As if every molecule of his being was being ripped apart and put back together again. This constant rejuvenation of self-loathing. If he could only stop coming here. Stop living in the past, in the might have been. If the world was only completely different. Tipped on its axis, a place where he was the one making dinner, laying out a perfect table for a perfect family every night. Receiving that tender kiss to the top of his head, so gentle and kind even from across the asphalt. If only they had run away. Run away from all of this all those years ago.

-

He had not expected to get an invitation to their wedding, seeing as he had been so very close to the groom once upon a time. Maybe Lisa didn’t know about any of that. Maybe Dean had done as he’d promised and never let anyone know. When he’d made him swear, swear on his very life, he had been so young, so naive. Convinced that every door would slam in his face if the unforgiving world ever knew the truth. By his mother. By his brothers, so filled with almighty grace. To be excommunicated from the only family he had ever known, ever strived so very hard to be a part of, would have been akin to death back then. But now…the past was a distant country, and he had crossed its borders too many times since then. Lost touch. Moved on. Become someone new. Someone who could play the piano ‘ever so well’. ‘Please Castiel,’ her neat script had read, ‘please could you play for us? I know that you have just finished your tour, but it would mean so much to us…’ There had been more platitudes and pleading, but it had been her final parting blow that had sealed his fate. ‘Dean would love to see you.’ He had booked his flight back to Kansas immediately. 

“Mother, it is lovely to see you,” but it had been anything but that. She had agreed to coffee only because he was famous now she had assured him. She still wanted nothing personally to do with him or his lifestyle. It had hurt less than he thought it would. Time and distance allowing the wound to scab over, maybe even to heal. He would never go back to his family, and that was fine. They could stay in Kansas. He could leave. Walk away from his past life in a way that none of them, with their convictions could. They probably told everyone he was dead. 

Lawrence was still beautiful in the spring. The trees just coming into blossom, if you ever had to spend a week there it would be the best time to go. That comforted him as he drove up to the old farmhouse. It had been Dean’s parents' place, the old tire swing and duck pond still frozen in time as if he had only just walked away from them. Except now the place was swarming with cars and delivery trucks. 

Dean stood out by the old oak, his back to the house, looking up into the fresh leaves. This tree had been a monument to them, its twisted branches their long ago haunt on hot summers days. Here, in this place, he was the one point of calm in the swirling chaos of the preparations. It had only been five years, but he was different. Even as Castiel stopped a way off, he could see the suit cut across a form so familiar and yet older, taller, broader than when he’d known him. But he was still breathtaking, still perfect. He must have sensed him staring and turned to meet his gaze. For the briefest second, the grand machinations of the world ceased, and it was just them. Caught like flies in Tennessee honey. A million moments filling the space between them. The things said, rolling in like a thunderhead. Those things left unsaid a mountain waiting to meet it. Pressure built until a gaggle of excited bridesmaids found them and dragged Dean away. There was nothing left for him here, just an old piano that he began to play for the arriving guests. 


End file.
